


beartrap

by aphilologicalbatman (inabathrobe)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-06-27 14:20:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15687141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inabathrobe/pseuds/aphilologicalbatman
Summary: James gets more than he bargained for.





	beartrap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yeats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeats/gifts).



> For Yeats, who dragged me to the finish line kicking and screaming. Many thanks to Digs, who betaed this with enormous perspicacity. After eighteen months, here we are.

It starts with the Polaroid. He’s rifling through all of Cristiano’s hair products and bath products and balms and lotions, trying to find something to put in his hair to make it look like he hasn’t been up half the night fucking his teammate. He finds a mousse that he thinks will do, and when he pulls it out of the drawer, something falls off the bottom of it. He sees the back of a Polaroid with the date written on it in Cristiano’s neat hand: 5 April 2011. The back is dusty and sticky with stray product. He flips it over expecting a photo of Junior or maybe a family vacation.

It’s a photo of a man with dark hair and dark eyes laughing, the breeze ruffling his hair, the sun shining in his eyes and making him squint at the camera. James doesn’t recognize him at first, not so divorced from context, but eventually something in the crinkles around the eyes and the ruffled hair clicks, and he realizes that it’s Kaká. He doesn’t think anything of it; after all, he was on the team for almost five years. Why shouldn’t Cris have a photo of him floating around somewhere?

But then, later, when they’re making out on the couch, one of them (Cris himself, James thinks) knocks an elbow into the framed photo of Cris's mother and Junior in swimming trunks by the pool, and it falls to the ground, the glass shattering and the frame splitting apart at one corner. Cris swears, leaps up, and rushes off to get a dustpan and broom. James gets up carefully, his feet bare, and starts to pick up the biggest pieces. He fishes the photo out from under the pile of glass and fractured frame. Underneath the photo, between it and the back of the frame, there’s another Polaroid. This one isn’t yellow and fading. It’s never been exposed to the sun for long. It's Kaká again, dappled with sun, shirtless, staring casually into the camera’s gaze. The background, what little of it he can see, the pale blue ribbing of some chair, strikes him as familiar.

He looks up at the sound of Cris’s footsteps, letting the Polaroid flutter to the floor. Behind Cris, backlit by the afternoon sun streaming through the sliding glass doors, James sees the pool loungers. They're a faint sunbleached blue.

When he turns his attention back to Cris and the broken frame, there's no sign of the Polaroid, just Cris industriously sorting the large pieces into a plastic grocery bag. He must have pocketed it. James starts transferring his own little pile into the bag. "Sorry," James says.

Cris brushes his words away. "I'll buy another. I'm just glad the photo didn't get damaged." He strokes a thumb over Junior in the picture, kneeling next to his grandma. James could ask. Cris has left him an opening. Instead, he picks up the dustpan and starts brushing glass crumbs into it.

A week later after a recovery training session, they go out for an early dinner. It makes James feel a million years old, dining next to white-haired madrileño pensioners, but it means no one bothers them, even if they've been recognized. Cris tells James to order wine, and he gets a bottle of rioja.

James doesn't remember that Cris won't be drinking the wine with him until he politely sends away the second glass. "What, you're not joining me?" he says, teasing.

Cris sips his water. "I don't drink," he says softly.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry. I forgot."

Cris waves it away. "I don't mind if anyone else partakes."

It throws James off, though. He's incredulous that he forgot, that this important part of Cris had slipped away from him. He drinks the first glass too quickly and keeps going like that. By the time it's gone, he has a decent buzz going. He touches Cris's hand a few times, and he lets his fingers linger on the inside of his arm.

Cris smiles at him and flags down the waiter, handing him some sleek black piece of plastic without bothering to get the bill. He leaves a little extra in cash, but as soon as his card comes back, he's up and steering James out of the restaurant. The valet scurries off to get Cris's car, and Cris hisses into his ear, "Careful now."

He pours himself into the passenger seat when the valet opens it for him, and Cris slides into the driver's seat next to him. James is about to say something when Cris turns on the radio. James lets the leather cradle him as Cris drives just the right side of too fast. Madrid speeds by outside the cool glass of the window, the sun dipping low, the light turning blue. He's clearer-headed when they pull into Cris's driveway. He feels the car settle under him. Cris touches his shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

"Hm? Oh. Just a little tired."

Cris gives him an arch look, part fondness, part worry. "And a little drunk?"

"Just a little," James says, grinning at him. "Why, you worried I'll fall asleep on you?"

Cris laughs as he gets out of the car.

"Because that's _your_ job, old man," James calls out after Cris's retreating back, walking up to the stoop, keys in hand.

Cris shouts, "That was one time!", and opens the door, dogs pouring out. The little black pug detaches himself from the night and hustles over to James, almost tripping him as he tries to walk up the flagstone path to join Cris in the foyer. James hoists him up, tucking the little guy under one arm. He gives him a little noogie, and the pug yarps back at him happily, drooling a little on the arm of James's sweater. He closes the door and sets the dog down on the tile. Cris is scratching Marosca behind the ears. James wanders over and, shoving the dog's big head out of the way, sets himself down on Cris's lap.

"Hi," Cris says, smiling up at him. Up close, Cris looks his age, more worn around the edges than he looks at a distance. James always forgets about Cris's crow's feet when he isn't looking right at them. James shuts his eyes and presses their mouths together, gentle. It's almost chaste, the kiss, but James leans into Cris, coaxing the kiss out of him, and soon Cris is slipping his hands under James's sweater, fingers cool against his skin.

"Bed," James mutters, pushing at Cris's shoulder, but Cris just moves to mouth at James's jaw, nip his ear, says, "Slow down," squeezes James's thigh. James tries to ride his lap a little, but it isn't easy or comfortable, and he gets the feeling that Cris is laughing at him.

"Is this what happens when you have wine with dinner?"

"No, this is what happens when I have dinner with _you_."

Cris lets out a deep sigh and ruffles James's hair. "I guess I have to take responsibility for my actions." He slides James out of his lap and steadies him as he regains his footing. James offers him a hand up, and Cris takes it. James lets go once they're both standing, but Cris keeps hold. He waits for Cris to reel him in for a kiss, but instead, dogs trailing at their heels, they head up the stairs. The entire house is empty and silent except for the clicking of the dogs' nails on the hardwood, their own footsteps, their breath, oddly loud in the settled darkness. Cris must have planned for Junior to be with Cris's mother tonight.

They turn into what James knows is Cris's bedroom, already gently warmed by the programmed central heating. They drift apart, Cris beginning to carefully disrobe, setting each item of clothing into its proper place in the walk-in closet, starting with his shoes on the shoe rack. James, after shimmying out of his jeans and sneakers, settles in at the head of the bed to watch the show, one that he's used to by now, the strange rhythm of Cris ending his day. When he's down to a pair of clearly-branded CR7 boxer briefs, he moves to put on his monogrammed bathrobe, then pulls his hand back. When Cris, hands on hips, turns back to face James, he catches him staring. "Eyes on the prize?"

James grins at him. "I expect you get that a lot."

Cris smiles back. "Once or twice."

James gets up and goes to him, pressing up against Cris's bare chest and tilting Cris's head down to kiss him. Cris lets out a small noise of pleasure and maybe surprise and surges up against him, mouth eager against James's own. Cris puts his arms around James's neck, tangling his fingers in his hair. They kiss like that for a while until Cris starts trying to take James's sweater off and they have to separate to pull it over his head. Once they're apart, James's chest suddenly cold, he feels at a loss. Cris is clearly waiting for him.

After a while, Cris says, "Tell me what you want."

James shakes his head. He's never sure what he's supposed, allowed, to want with Cris. "I don't know."

"What, I haven't given you enough ideas?" Cris kisses his cheek. He heads for the bed and sprawls out on it, and James follows. He perches on the edge of the bed, running a hand across Cris's bare stomach. Cris shivers. When James looks up, Cris pats the bed besides him. "Come on." James clambers up feeling all the world like an awkward child and lies down carefully next to Cris, nestling himself into the crook of Cris's shoulder. Cris gives him a little pursed frown, and James's stomach lurches. "Come here and kiss me."

James huffs and sits up. "I have to do all the work, huh?"

"That's the idea," Cris says, pulling James down. The kiss is soft at first, longing, and James leans into it, nipping at Cris's bottom lip. Cris likes that —Cris always likes that— and James goes easily as Cris manhandles James on top of him. Cris is smooth everywhere in a way that is simultaneously feminine and faintly superhuman. He wraps his legs around James, pulling their hips sloppily together, and James rocks down against him and finds Cris hard and wanting. He pushes Cris down and hears the little whoompf of air as Cris smacks into the bed.

James yanks Cris's briefs off, leaving them hooked onto one ankle, and then his own. Cris is watching him. Without breaking eye contact, Cris moves his hands up above his head, crossing them at the wrists. James must give him a weird look because Cris just as quickly shifts out of that position, grabbing for James. They crash together, mostly limbs, and the feeling of his dick against the skin of Cris's stomach is exhilarating.

Bracing himself against the pleasure of it, he digs his fingers into Cris's flank. Cris hisses, arching back, his whole body going taut. James freezes and then scrambles back, apologizing, and Cris is saying, "No, no, it's fine," and is trying to pull him back, and James lets himself be led, and Cris is kissing him, soft and tender and apologetic, and James slots their mouths together. Cris goes quiet under him as James licks into his mouth, which tastes like Cris and healthy living. Cris's hands are warm and huge on James's back. He could stay here for a very long time in this moment.

Cris moves his hands downward, skimming across James's back and coming to rest on his ass, squeezing a little. Cris bites James's lower lip and worries it, and James pushes him away. Cris looks cross, a little fretful, his brow worried. James says, "Will you wear your jersey while we—?"

Cris stares at him for a moment and then laughs, tipping James's head into the warm crook of his neck and roughing up his hair. James holds his breath until Cris says, "For you? Yes," and kisses the top of his head and then, as if unable to resist, his mouth, and they get distracted for a few minutes.

"Cris."

"Right. Yeah. Go pick one out."

James stares at him. "What?"

"From the closet," Cris says, and gestures. James scrambles up and makes a beeline for the walk-in. Cris calls after him, "Don't take too long." James turns back to look at him, languid, stroking himself. "I'm waiting," he says, and has the audacity to wink. James pulls himself together and finds the small collection of jerseys, white and red and teal and just one with green and white stripes, hanging in the farthest corner of the walk-in closet, carefully sectioned off from everything more practical. He picks one of the white ones out at random and turns it around to see if it's a 7 or a 9 to try to date it.

It's an 8.

There's a Polaroid pinned on next to KAKA'. In it, Kaká is sitting on a bed, wearing a white hotel bathroom, looking up at the camera as he's about to put a French fry in his mouth from a plate of steak frites on a room service tray. James can't put his finger on what's wrong with it until he realizes that he recognizes the travel bag in the corner of the frame. It's the same one standing next to him at the back of Cris's closet. The same one that Cris takes with him whenever they travel. He puts the jersey back and pulls a different one, a Ronaldo 7, and tries to walk out of the closet like nothing has happened. Like nothing is wrong.

A few days later, he skitters up to Marcelo at the end of training, pretending to be casual, helping Marcelo with a few stretches. As they stroll off the playing field, he asks Marcelo about his kids and Clarisse and what they did over the weekend, and Marcelo laughs and says, "Okay, you're making me nervous, kid. What do you want?"

And James says, "Cris and Kaká, were they close?"

He watches something in Marcelo's face close off, although his grin doesn't fade. "All of us Portuguese speakers were pretty close back then. Anything to avoid having to speak Spanish." A beat. "That's not what you meant, though, is it?"

James shrugs. "No."

"It's not really your business," Marcelo says, trying to soften the blow by ruffling James's hair.

"Well, it's ancient history anyway."

Marcelo does not say yes. He does say, "What Cris does in his own time is for him to know. I stay out of it." He arches his eyebrows and gives James a pointed look. "You should, too."

"He's my friend."

"Maybe, he shouldn't be." Marcelo knocks their shoulders together in an approximation of friendly affection and quickens his pace, yelling after Pepe and Cris. James slows, nearly to a standstill. It's not ancient history. He never thought they were exclusive or anything, but somehow, it still feels like having the wind knocked out of him.

That Friday night, he's out with some of the other young players when he hears from Cris at a quarter past midnight. James has only stopped dancing because he's too thirsty to keep at it, so it's pure luck that he notices his pocket vibrate while he sips the glass of water. It says: _hey you up?_ James laughs out loud because, oh my God, Cris, could you be more transparent? He types back: _yeah out with the boys why?_ because he wants to see if Cris will come up with a pretense.

Cris texts back: _come over._

James cracks the widest smile and looks at the ceiling, which does not erupt into fireworks, but that's just a technicality. He texts back: _do u kno what time it is?_

It takes less time than he expects for Cris to send him back a response: _time for you to come over_. James snorts. He texts back _ok_ , finishes his water with a gulp, and sends a message to the WhatsApp group, so the boys know where he's going. Then he adds to Cris: _hang in there ;)_

He's in the Uber on the way to Cris's place before Cris sends back a message that says _fuck off_. James texts back: _that's not the plan._ And then he tells the Uber driver to drop him at the gate. He gets buzzed in and then jogs up the drive because, well, he can play it cool by text, but this close in, it's hard to pretend he isn't half hard. He can feel the alcohol sweating out of him, skin a little chilly in the night breeze. The dogs start barking when he gets to the stoop. He knocks.

Cris opens it after half a minute. He's on— He's on the phone. James opens his mouth to say something, to ask who is calling this late, but Cris holds up a single finger and says in Portuguese to the person on the other end, "Yeah, my guest is here. But, okay, send me your flight details. Yeah. All right, love you. See you soon." Cris hangs up. He smiles lopsidedly. To James, he says, "Sorry, family," and reels him in.

James smacks his elbow into the doorknob as Cris presses him up against the door, suddenly very close. When they kiss, Cris tastes bitter like coffee, and he slides a thigh between James's legs and sucks at his lower lip. James is used to feeling like he's overly eager, like he's making a fool of himself with his desire to get his hands on Cris, but this— this is something else. He pulls Cris back, hands cupping his jaw, looking Cris over, his pupils blown wide. "What's up?"

Cris smiles. "Can I suck you off?"

"That's not an answer to my question," James says, but he's also not going to argue with Cris as he sinks to his knees and fanatically unzips James's pants and gets his dick out of his boxers. "Jesus, no one else is home, right?"

Cris looks up, clearly irritated at being interrupted. "Junior is having a sleepover with his cousins." He laps at the head of James's dick, and okay, that conversation is clearly over.

"Fuck. Shit." James lets his head fall back against Cris's front door. The knock echoes back through his head. Cris swallows him down. He really shouldn't be good at this. (Don't think about what it means that he is, about the bodies who came before him.) Cris blindly shoves James's pants and underwear farther down, trapping his thighs together, but not holding down his hips. Cris's hair is already relaxing out of its careful slicked back style, so James figures it's fair game to wrap his fingers in it, to hold Cris's head still while he bucks up into his mouth, Cris, who sometimes gags when James forgets himself, but who is always game, will always go back for more.

Cris's eyes are shut as he bobs his head up and down, careful and thorough. The sight of him, though, hands braced on either side of him, taking it, his hair a mess from James's grasp— James touches Cris's cheek, the exaggerated hollow of it, and Cris looks up at him as he sucks him down again. His mouth is warm and wet, and it could be any mouth, really, but it isn't. Cristiano Ronaldo is sucking him off.

James says, "I'm gonna—", and Cris doesn't, never does, pull away.

When he cares to pay attention again, Cris is tidying up, tucking him away into his boxers and shoving his jeans down to pool over his sneakers. Cris pulls them off, one by one, so James could step out of his jeans if he were feeling up to it. "Hi," James says.

Cris gives him a look, goes to kiss him, and then deflects it to his cheek instead. "Hi."

"Want me to— for you?"

"What, blow me? No."

"Should I go?" James says, laughing.

Cris considers him coolly. "No," he says. "I'm not done with you yet."

James swallows hard. "Upstairs?" Cris beckons him to follow, and James does.

Cris's bedroom is messy when they get there. It looks lived in for once, the duvet rumpled, some of the pillows sliding onto the floor. Cris plugs his phone in to charge and then turns on James, who is hovering in the middle of the room. "Take off your clothes," he says as though it's the most obvious thing in the world.

James says, "You first," and Cris grins at him. He's wearing what passes for loungewear for Cris, which is an artfully ratty tee and a pair of exercise pants that cling to his legs even as he slides them off. He folds them carelessly and sets them by the nightstand, and like that, Cris is naked and utterly unself-conscious about it. "Show-off."

Cris shrugs and wanders over to James, wrapping his hands around his waist. "Yes," he says, and kisses him. James runs his hands down Cris's back, feeling for the muscles there, how they fit together. He finds a knot and rubs a thumb into it almost automatically, unthinking, and Cris groans a little and pulls back. "You're good at that," he says, surprised.

He opens his mouth to tell Cris about Daniela carrying all her tension in her back and then thinks better of it. Instead, he says, "I have hidden talents."

Cris smirks. "Any others I should know about?"

James says, "Well, I'm really good at unhooking bras," and presses the place on Cris's back where the clasp would be, and that forces a laugh out of him. Cris starts to kiss him properly, nipping at his lower lip and sucking James's tongue into his mouth, but his fingers are fumbling on the buttons of James's shirt, and he regrets for the first time picking out a button-down to wear to the club. Cris breaks away, frustrated, and focuses his attention on dispatching each button with meticulous care, and James has to work very hard not to laugh at the look of intense concentration on Cris's face. When he finally gets it open, Cris gives a huff of distaste at the discovery of James's undershirt. James shrugs the button-down off and then pulls the undershirt up over his head. "Better?"

Cris hooks his thumbs into James's boxers and slides them far enough downwards that they fall the rest of the way. James steps out of them and toes off his socks, suddenly awkward and off balance. Cris is watching him. Cris says, "Go lie down on the bed." James backs up toward the bed and sprawls out on it.

Cris watches him for a moment, letting him settle in, before he clambers across the bed and pins James into the mountain of pillows, grinding their hips together. James can feel himself getting distracted, letting the nerves and the easy pleasure swallow him up. Steeling himself, he manages to get out, "You wanna fuck me?" It sounds gasping and desperate, and James feels that strange bolt in his stomach that he gets when he admits how bad he wants another man, wants Cris.

Cris gives a guttural moan. "Yeah, something like that," and guides James's hands onto Cris's ass, which is firm and toned and glorious, and he kneads his fingers into it, which elicits little happy moans from Cris, who presses back into his hand, and a murmuring stream of Portuguese, not quite distinguishable.

"No, stop."

Cris freezes above him and then moves back, kneeling over James's hips, careful not to touch them. His hands are hovering in the air where James can see them, tipped halfway up as if under arrest. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I— Yeah." James touches Cris's elbow, and Cris melts, settling down onto James's upper thighs.

"What's up?"

"Look, I really want us to fuck. But I've never, uh, taken it?"

Cris blinks down at him. "Okay."

James lets out the breath he was holding. "But I want to. I want us to have that closeness, you know."

Cris doesn't meet his eyes as he says very softly, "You don't have to. You could fuck me."

James touches the inside of Cris's wrist where his hand is floating in no man's land inches from James's side. James guides Cris’s hand back to rest on his skin. "That's okay. I want you to."

"Oh, well. If that's what you want?"

James gives him a weak smile. "Yeah, definitely."

Cris says, "Whatever you want," and James does. He does. Cris moves close again, mouth suddenly tentative at the corners of James's mouth. Cris is half hard against him, so James gives him a hand and Cris tips their mouths together, a little desperate. They stay like that, kissing wetly, Cris grinding down onto him, James stroking him, until James taps him on the shoulder, and Cris pulls back a little. "Mhm?"  


"You should fuck me."

"Mm," Cris murmurs and dips his head down to go back to the kissing and the grinding and the handjob.

" _Cris_."

Cris sighs and rolls over, and James watches Cris try to pull himself back together.

The lube is already on the nightstand. "Condoms?" James prompts.

Cris stares back at him for a long, uncomfortable moment before he says, "Oh. Yeah." He slides over to the edge of the bed and opens the nightstand drawer. He fishes around in it. "Shit. Sorry, I think there are some in my travel bag." Cris gives him a slightly apologetic look as if Cris can tell he's imagining all the girls Cris must fuck when the squad travels. Cris strolls off into the walk-in closet.

James watches him go. He rolls over and tries to distract himself. Cris left the nightstand drawer ajar. James moves to push it shut, and against his better judgment, he opens it. A pocket bible, crisp and seemingly unopened. A tub of expensively packaged night cream. A few sample packets of flavored lube. A tiny bullet vibrator. A Polaroid, face down.

James turns it over.

The man's dark hair is sticking up at the back of his head. He's trying to cover his face with one hand, but his eyes are laughing. He's naked and not shy about it, one hand wrapped around his erection, tugging gently. One leg up, the other sprawling off camera. His chest has a red flush to it. He's lying in a bed on rumpled white sheets, the edge of a dark grey coverlet just visible. And James knows, just knows, that it's the same bed he's sitting on.

When Cris walks back in, James is still staring at it, and Cris is saying, "I just don't bring a lot of people back here who I'm going to use condoms with," and then he must see James holding the photo because his voice dies in his throat.

James doesn't look up. Doesn't look away. "How long were you fucking Kaká for?"

Cris stares at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then, he says, carefully level, "For a few years."

James stands up. "I should leave."

Cris moves to catch him and then stops, clearly thinking better of it. "James, please."

"What? What do you have to say, Cristiano?"

"I'm sorry you saw that photo, but—" Cris hesitates, and James waits for it, for whatever bullshit Cris is going to come out with. "I've seen other people. I still see other people. I've done things I'm not proud of. It's part of being a person. And I thought you knew that."

James doesn't look at him. "It's one thing to know it. It's another to just— to have it—" He throws up his hands. "Is he better than I am?"

Cris blinks at him. "At football?"

" _No_."

"It's not a contest." Cris opens his arms, and James, God help him, lets Cris welcome him in.

He knows that he should let it go after that, but when he closes his eyes, he sees Kaká naked against the back of his eyelids. Kaká, who is out there somewhere, who speaks Portuguese, who is a golden boy, who Cris keeps photos of hidden all around his house. (Did he hide Kaká from his family? James still hasn't ever seen Junior at the house while he was there.) Kaká, whose career is virtually over, who has been banished to America. James needs to let this go.

He can't.

He can’t stop imagining Cris’s life before him, can’t stop wondering about other Kakás, so he tries to catch Cris after practice, but never seems to get him alone. Eventually, James gives in and drives over to Cris's place after training, even though Cris probably would've hung around to chat if he wanted to. When he waves at the security feed, someone —probably Cris— buzzes him in, and he drives through the gate and up the driveway, and his heart is pounding like he's played ninety minutes plus stoppage time when he climbs the stoop. He rings the doorbell.

And he waits.

And he waits.

Eventually, Cris opens the door. He's wearing Real-branded sweats and nothing else, and he looks good. James says, "Hi."

"Hi," Cris says. "You better come in."

Inside, the house looks the same. There's a cluster of Junior's shoes on the foyer floor. Marosca comes up to wag at him. Cris steers him, oddly enough, into the kitchen. "I'm making coffee. You want coffee?" He's on edge. Well, they both are. Does Cris somehow know about his conversation with Marcelo?

"Sure."

Cris pours two mugs. "Milk? Sugar?"

"Two sugars."

Cris puts them in, doesn't make his usual crack about James's sweet tooth, stirs, hands the too-hot mug to James. Cris adds one sugar and a good dollop of milk to the other cup. That's not how Cris takes his coffee: sweetened but black. From the hallway, he hears a man's voice call out something in Portuguese that he doesn't quite catch. James jumps a little, making his coffee slosh against the sides of the mug. Cris doesn't answer, and then the man walks into the room. He has dark hair and dark eyes and ruffled hair. He is wearing Cris's bathrobe. His smile, soft and wide, grows wider when he sees James. Kaká says something to Cris about him, about James, and Cris answers him first in Portuguese and then adds in Spanish, "We have company."

Kaká opens his mouth as if to say something, shuts it, and makes a face. He says haltingly in Spanish, "Cris did not say you are coming."

"I didn't tell him."

Kaká nods as if he often drops in unannounced on Cristiano Ronaldo (well, maybe he does) and crosses the kitchen to take up the other cup of coffee. He squeezes Cris's arm as he takes the first sip. They exchange a few words in Portuguese (James catches "coffee," but he can't understand Kaká's accent), and Kaká pecks Cris's cheek. Cris explains, "I remembered how he takes his coffee."

Kaká says between sips, "I think he forgets." Cris hipchecks him, and Kaká makes some pointed comments that seem to be about Cris risking his coffee, and Cris smiles at him. James already knows that he needs to leave. That he hates everything about this.

"It's good to meet you," Kaká says. "I don't meet many of Cris's boyfriends." He doesn't look angry or jealous or— anything really. His face has settled into the neutral almost-smile that James remembers from a dozen photos of Kaká on the pitch.

"I wasn't expecting you," Cris says pointedly.

"Sorry," James says.

"He is—” Ricky frowns. “ _Maldisposto_?"

"Cranky," Cris supplies.

"He is cranky because you interrupted us," Kaká says gently. "He will feel better soon."

Cris looks skeptical about that and steals a sip of Kaká's coffee. Kaká pretends to fight him off for a moment and then lets Cris take the mug. He makes a pointed comment that James guesses is him telling Kaká that his milky coffee is disgusting. Kaká doesn't answer, just settles a hand on Cris's hip. James wants Cris to move it away or at least shrug it off. Kaká's hand stays there, pale on Cris's tanned stomach, rubbing little circles.

James interrupted them. He should go now. Kaká finishes his coffee and clears his throat as if resolved to say something. James doesn't know what he's expecting, but it isn't: "I have only two days in Madrid."

"Oh," James says.

Cris gives Kaká a look that James can't quite interpret. Kaká shrugs. A silence settles over them. When it's so thick that James feels he could cut it with a knife and serve it to his grandmother, Kaká says, "So Cris's ass, huh?"

James and Cris both splutter, and Kaká shrugs a little, and somehow, the moment comes out okay. Cris is laughing, muttering something in Portuguese, and James manages a weak chuckle. Kaká makes what seems like a light-hearted comment that makes Cris look away, and then the mood slides back to chilly and bizarre, and they have a rapid-fire exchange in Portuguese, and Cris is raising his voice, and then Kaká says to James with a venom that makes him wilt: "You don't fuck him?"

Cris snaps, "It's fine," as James says, "No?"

Kaká looks first at Cris and then at James. "Do you not want to?" he says, so honestly confused that James doesn't know how to answer.

"Maybe, I want to fuck him," Cris says.

Kaká says, "Do you?"

Cris doesn't answer.

Kaká rounds on James next. "So he always fucks you?"

James says, "Uh, well, mostly we sort of, um—", and he's not sure if you're supposed to admit to Kaká, golden boy and Ballon d'Or winner, that you mostly just fool around with someone when that someone is Cristiano Ronaldo.

"We're taking it slow," Cris says, "and, yeah, I always fuck him." James isn't sure that one time while they were both in foul moods about a photo of Kaká naked counts as always.

Kaká tells Cris something about being macho and also possibly to go fuck himself (James is really out on a limb here because it's all Brazilian slang and, besides, Kaká speaks Portuguese like he has a head cold), and Cris calls him a hypocrite. Then, Kaká tells Cris that he should get a better boyfriend, and Cris tells him that he's not one to talk, and they stare daggers at each other.

James has got to leave.

"So fuck him, then," Kaká says. He says it in Spanish, so he knows they've both understood him. He tilts his head and stares at Cris, waiting. "Or should I do it?"

"Oh, I think that's a fantastic idea. What do you think, James? Do you want Ricky to fuck you?"

They both turn on him like predatory birds. James licks his lips. He says, "If that's what you want." And Cris smiles, gleaming white and resplendent, and he squeezes Kaká's arm. Kaká has an odd look on his face, suspicious but smug, and he reels Cris in to him, and James has never actually watched two men kiss before. Not in real life, not in front of him, not _right there_. Not men he knows. Cris is fumbling with the sash of the robe Kaká is wearing as Kaká cups his jaw and tilts Cris's head _just so_ , and okay, if James weren't turned on before, the way that Cris presses up against Kaká when he gets the bathrobe open, as if he can't get close enough, gets him there.

Eventually, Kaká lets go of Cris. Cris holds on for a moment before letting go.

Kaká says, "Upstairs," like it's a command, not a suggestion, and when Cris doesn't move to lead the way, Kaká takes James's hand and starts toward the hallway, towing him along. Kaká's grip slackens as they go, but he still hurries to keep up, glancing back to see if Cris is following. (He is, some way behind, with a cup of coffee. He is not smiling.) James isn't sure he could've found his way back to Cris's bedroom, although he's been there a handful of times, but Kaká seems to know where he's going, confident even though the ends of his bathrobe's sash are dragging behind him, trying to trip James up.

The bedroom itself is much as James remembers it. He's never been there during the afternoon, though. It's sunnier than he would've thought. The duvet is scrunched at the foot of the bed, hanging onto one corner. The second pillow, the one Cris never uses, looks slept on, still rumpled, as though the sleeper had just risen. There's a little rolling suitcase parked unobtrusively in a corner, unopened. Kaká walks into Cris's closet, and James sits down on the edge of the bed, on the side that isn't Cris's, the one closer to the en suite.

When Kaká comes back into the bedroom, he's naked. James— It's not that he doesn't want to look. It's more that Kaká isn't the sort of person he expects to see naked, much less naked and half hard in Cris's bedroom of all places. He looks; he can't help it. Kaká is clearly a few years older than he was in that last Polaroid, softer in places, his knee more scarred. When he finishes looking, he realizes that Kaká is watching him. Kaká smiles a small, secretive smile and walks around to the other side of the bed, Cris's side, and lies down on it, expansive and serene, propped up on Cris's pillow, the one that smells like his shampoo and sweat. Kaká looks at him, and James turns back to stare straight ahead.

Cris strolls in with his cup of coffee. He glances at both of them and says to Kaká, "You're on my side of the bed."

Kaká replies, "I wasn't sure you were joining us."

"Yes, you were." Cris crosses the room and hands Kaká his mug. The other man sips it, makes a face, and passes it back. Cris sets the mug of coffee down and leans forward into Kaká, and James thinks the kiss will last, oh, a moment, but Kaká pulls Cris back down into it, holds him there, one hand tight in his hair. When Kaká lets go, Cris says, "Fuck him the way I like it, yeah?"

Kaká murmurs something back in Portuguese, and Cris pecks him on the lips and steps back off the bed, taking his coffee with him. He settles himself into a low, slate grey armchair. When neither James nor Kaká springs to action, Cris makes a gesture like a conductor starting a symphony. Kaká says, "Can I undress you?", soft and gentle, like he's speaking to a child, and James bristles at that.

"No, no, I can do it."

"I know." It's meant to be _kind_ , he can tell, which makes James bristle even more. He pulls his t-shirt off and starts on his belt, fingers slipping as he hurries. He wants Cris to offer to do it for him, but Cris stays silent. When he's shucked off his socks and boxers, he sits back down. Kaká says imperiously, "Come here," and James would have stayed put if it weren't for the look on Cris's face as he worries his lower lip. So he goes. Kaká opens his arms as if welcoming him in, but he straddles Kaká's hips, pinning him down.

Kaká smiles up at him. "You know, Cris was the first man I ever slept with, too." James doesn't actually want to know that. He doesn't want to know how many unhappy married teammates Cris has fucked around with. "Not vice versa, though. He was precocious in that, too." He pauses, waiting for James to pick up the thread of conversation. James stubbornly refuses. Kaká adds, "If you kiss me, you don't have to listen to me talk."

James lunges, and he doesn't expect Kaká to take it, to absorb the shock and wrap around him, suddenly handsy, happy to suck James's tongue into his mouth, his nails hot, sharp lines against James's back. It strikes him as strange how much Kaká takes. James expects a show of force, but he gets feathered pets down his back and warm hands digging into the flesh of his lovehandles and wandering lower, pulling the cheeks of his ass apart and brushing his finger against James's hole, and it took Cris ages to work up to this; he felt like he'd earned it in the end, so to simply be given it is strange and sweet. He must make a noise because Kaká says, "Yeah?", and James doesn't bother to say anything, just murmurs in agreement, and Kaká is reaching clumsily for the bottle of lube somewhere on the bedside table.

Cris says, "I'll do it," from somewhere behind him. He feels them link hands for a moment against the skin of his back, and then there is a cold absence of touch on his skin and the sound of a squirt of lube, and big hands are spreading his ass open, and Kaká is pressing the tip of his finger in, too slow, too noncommittal, and James has to choose between shoving back against it or grinding down against Kaká's stomach.

He buries his face in the crook of Kaká's shoulder, too scattered to keep kissing. Kaká tangles his free hand into James's hair, cups the back of his head, holds him there. Kaká is murmuring softly to him in Portuguese, which he associates so strongly with Cris that he almost forgets. When he opens his eyes and looks up, Kaká isn't paying attention to him at all, but is instead looking up, at Cris, he supposes. He shuts his eyes again.

He leans into the feeling of Kaká's finger sliding in and out of him, sinking far enough into it, that Kaká has to shake him a little to get his attention. "Hey, hey," Kaká says, cupping his face. James mumbles his response, leaning into the thumb rubbing across his cheek. "Another one?"

"What?"

"Another finger. That okay?"

James nods once and then scrapes together enough thought to say, "yes," and Kaká lets him settle into himself again. The second finger is a stretch, and somewhere above him, Kaká is asking Cris to give him more lube, and it's cold enough that he shivers, and then Kaká finds his prostate, and he _shivers_. Beneath him, Kaká's hips come up to meet him.

Then, with no warning, something hits James's back, and he jerks back. Kaká stares at him, confused, and then Cris throws another projectile at them, and James grabs this one off Kaká's chest. It's a condom packet. Kaká, pulling his fingers out, takes it from James's hand and stares at it. After a long moment, he says, "What're these for?"

Cris says, "Your dick."

All James can see is Kaká's mouth turning into a squirrelly moue of distaste. "But we don't—?"

"He and I do," Cris says icily.

They lie there in silence until Kaká bites out, "Fine," and behind him, Cris says, "Good," and James can feel the crescents of Cris's nails biting into the flesh of his ass. He swallows hard, steeling himself to ask what's wrong, when he hears the sharp rustle-rip of the condom packet and Ricky saying, "Are you ready for me to fuck you, sweetheart?"

But it isn't James's voice that answers: " _Yes._ "

It's Cris's.

He expects Kaká to say something. He expects _himself_ to say something. Instead, what happens is this: Cris shoves him bodily off Kaká. He rolls onto his back on the bed, the air half knocked out of him. Cris is moving to straddle Kaká's hips and snapping at him in Portuguese, quick and furious enough to go over James's head almost entirely. He catches, "you fucker," and, "I can't believe," and that's it. He can guess the rest, though, because Kaká slaps him across the face and Cris moans and shoves their mouths together and Kaká wraps his legs around Cris, digging a heel into the small of his back, and Kaká’s nails leave angry red lines where he drags them across Cris’s back. Like wings, James thinks.

And James has to sit there, watching them, because they don’t leave off kissing once Kaká has made his point. They don’t resurface like he assumes they will. He watches until he can’t, and then he’s staring at the ceiling, feeling like all the air has drained out of the room, and they are— well, he isn’t completely clear on the particulars, but he can hear it. If there’s one part of his Portugese that he remembers well, it’s the swear words. And Cris is usually so polite when he speaks.

He doesn’t look over when the bed shakes, but the condom, slimy with lube but empty, thank God, hitting him on the shoulder gets his attention. Kaká is still sprawled back on the bed, but Cris is sitting up, sinking down onto Kaká’s dick, his mouth screwed up into an angry line. Kaká touches Cris’s inner thigh, muttering at him not to rush, and Cris swats his hand away. The smack of skin hitting skin is loud in the silent house. Cris’s chest is flushed pink. When Cris moves his thighs, James can see Kaká’s dick slide in and out of his ass, faintly obscene. Kaká is trying to leverage the inch or two he could arch up off the bed with his knees, but Cris presses him down, one hand on Kaká’s stomach, and after a moment, he settles, his legs relax. Cris leaves his hand there.

And of course James knows objectively that Cris has strong thigh muscles. They’ve been playing together for years now; he knows that Cris is strong, that he can carry himself across the pitch, that he can manage ninety minutes even now, even in his thirties, and make it look nearly effortless. But Cris makes riding Kaká’s dick look easy, although he’s biting into his own lip with the concentration of it.

Kaká starts to talk. Most of it, most of what James can still understand, is Kaká telling Cris how good he is at this, how good he feels, how good Cris looks as he rides Kaká’s dick. There’s enough slang that James gets lost in it, but he can guess. Cris doesn’t say anything. He just lets Kaká talk, his horrible nasal voice rambling through slang that James has never heard before, breaking off occasionally to swear. Cris— James thinks that Cris is teasing Kaká, although he can’t be sure.

Cris moves to touch himself, and Kaká snaps, “Did I say you could do that?” Cris bites his lip, moves his hands above his head, crosses them at the wrists. “Good boy.” Kaká strokes Cris’s side and then runs his nails down it, leaving behind long red lines, making Cris arch his back and whimper.

                                                                                                                

It feels familiar for a moment before it clicks with him. He’s seen Cris move his hands that way before. And he had, what? Ignored it. James is going to leave, he tells himself, once, twice, three times. But it’s hard to look away from the sight of Cristiano Ronaldo slowly coming apart, fucking himself on a washed up superstar who James looked up to when he was a kid.

Cris says, “Ricky?”, and Kaká spits on his hand and starts to stroke Cris off, hand moving slower than Cris’s ragged thrusts. James guiltily takes himself in hand, not really bothering to match their pace, a tinge of desperation in the way he thrusts up into his own hand. He watches Cris’s eyes drift closed, and Kaká murmurs, “Look at me,” and Cris does. “Come for me?” Kaká says, and James decides that can go for himself as well as Cris. He lets himself sprawl out on the bed, staring at the ceiling, a perfect white canvas. Eventually, he feels the bed move under him, Kaká stumbling across on coltish legs to the bathroom. When he comes back, he touches James’s arm and offers him a wet washcloth and a small smile. James takes it. The washcloth is warm and soft. Next to him, Kaká is arguing with Cris about the virtues of him rolling over, so Kaká can clean him up. James gets up and flees to the bathroom. He takes a piss, trying not to stare at himself in the mirror.

When he emerges again, the bedroom is empty except for Cris, sprawled out in the bedsheets and dozing. James collects his own clothes from the floor and dresses himself. He shuffles out without waking Cris up, telling himself that he’ll see him at training tomorrow anyway. He hears Kaká calling the dogs and follows Marosca, who had been napping in the hallway, toward the central foyer. Kaká is standing by the back door when he gets there, shooing the dogs outside and telling them pointedly to go do their business already. “Oh,” he says. “Hello.”

“Hi,” James says. “I was just heading out.”

“Oh, okay.” Kaká is only half paying attention to him, one eye on the dogs the whole time. “That’s probably for the best. I should pick up Junior from Dolores’s house. She never makes him start his homework before dinner.”

James nods, turns, makes it all the way to the door before Kaká calls out his name. He turns around.

“Do you love your wife?”

“What?”

“Because if you do— you should stop messing around with Cris. She won’t forgive you for it.” He adds as if by way of explanation, “Mine didn’t.”

James says, his mouth bypassing his brain, “Did you love your wife?”

Kaká doesn’t answer him before James walks out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on [Tumblr](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/).


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